Walter Marsh

Great read, had never clocked the Grace Jones connection 🌨️

The Butterfly Thief It was inevitable that George Lyell and Gustavus Athol Waterhouse would become friends, despite all appearances. Lyell lived in the Victorian town of Gisborne, had never got beyond high school and was a partner in a dairy machinery factory. Waterhouse had haunted the Australian Museum since attending prestigious Sydney Grammar next door and graduated with first-class honours in geology and palaeontology. There were 11 years between them.

In 1947, 800 butterfly specimens were quietly stolen from Australian museums by a British socialite. Walter Marsh’s ‘The Butterfly Thief’ uncovers a story of obsession, betrayal and friendship in a story it’s surprising isn’t better known. satpa.pe/9ATiKCF

The great butterfly heist: how a gentleman collector stole thousands of butterflies from Australian museums Scientists are still unravelling the thefts of Colin Wyatt, an English adventurer, artist and naturalist who charmed the entomological community

The great butterfly heist: how a gentleman collector stole thousands of butterflies from Australian museums

Trent Dalton, Bri Lee and Melissa Leong’s ‘raw’ memoir: the best Australian books out in October Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Fiction, Simon & Schuster, $34.99 Continue reading...

Trent Dalton, Bri Lee and Melissa Leong’s ‘raw’ memoir: the best Australian books out in October

The fluke that exposed Australia’s greatest museum heist A chance discovery rocked the world of natural science: more than 3000 rare butterfly specimens had vanished from Australia’s most prestigious museums.

The fluke that exposed Australia’s greatest museum heist — extract from my new book in this weekend’s Fin Review:

www.afr.com/life-and-lux...

My second book, The Butterfly Thief, is out today — cracking open the complicated world of natural history museums, and the gentleman collector who left them scrambling 🦋

Net it in the wild at your local bookshop or order online: scribepublications.com.au/books/the-bu...

Shrinking casts, diminished reach, less ambition: the arts in Australia needs more than just tax reform | Eamon Flack The real goal of arts policy shouldn’t be to keep organisations solvent – it needs to keep each artform alive for the next generation, writes Belvoir St theatre’s artistic director

"The real goal of arts policy shouldn’t be to keep organisations solvent; it needs to keep each artform alive for the next generation. Artistic talent doesn’t spontaneously come to fruition [...] [it] is passed down from the generation before." theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Walter Marsh – The Butterfly Thief – Gleebooks.com.au

Sydney book launch, Tues September 30 @ Gleebooks, in conversation with Helen Sullivan 🦋🍷

Tickos: gleebooks.com.au/event/walter...

Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause By ignoring the rhetoric and actions of the Turning Point USA founder, pundits and politicians are sanitizing his legacy.

Ta-Nehasi Coates is doing a lot of things with this essay, but one of the most important is fearlessly using examples of anti-trans hate to describe Charlie Kirk's politics.

The contrast between his choices and those of other writers for major legacy outlets is revealing.

(He also thanked the giant media empire his father ran so there’s my pinch of salt)

Reflecting on the history of @meanjin.bsky.social — back in 1949 our teenage comrade Rupert Murdoch published his own lit mag and credited Meanjin (and its founder/his Geelong Grammar teacher Clem Christensen) for making it possible. It was the first thing he ever published.

The end of Meanjin after 85 years is as sad as it is infuriating | Ben Walter MUP says it is ‘no longer viable’ to make the literary magazine – but almost none of them are financially viable. That’s not their purpose or value

Here's me in Guardian Australia on the total debacle with Meanjin.

www.theguardian.com/books/commen...

Current MUP chair Warren Bebbinton was also Vice Chancellor at the University of Adelaide when it cut off support for Australia’s first and oldest community radio station in 2015 (Radio Adelaide was gutted and barely limps on today).

‘Literature should make us question things’: Hossein Asgari grapples with memory and grief in Desolation - InReview | InDaily, Inside South Australia After his debut novel was unexpectedly shortlisted for the Miles Franklin, Adelaide-based author Hossein Asgari’s follow-up Desolation explores how memory, grief and acts of violence shape the stories...

“Maybe that’s what literature can do – it helps us understand, and maybe even forgive.”

Great profile of Hossein Asgari, whose debut novel was passed on by a dozen publishers, then got shortlisted for the Miles Franklin. His follow up, Desolation, is out now:

www.indailysa.com.au/inreview/boo...

FWIW everyone knows how bad it is but if state and federal governments go out there saying it's a catastrophic disaster, the state will suffer economically when it still needs people to visit. SA is not a rich place and is taking a hit. We will see more of these tensions in the future, I'm sure.

An aside: journalism exists in an attention economy where demand drives editorial decision making. If you find something you enjoyed, learned from and that moved you, share and share widely -- even four days late. I, and others, don't get to keep doing this stuff if no one reads it.

The barriers keeping Adelaide musicians off the stage - InReview | InDaily, Inside South Australia A government-backed industry showcase’s failure to accommodate emerging artist Nat Luna has stoked a bigger conversation about accessibility.

And considered the accessibility of our live scene while profiling the excellent Nat Luna and Sarah Footner: www.indailysa.com.au/inreview/mus...

‘I would never give up the process’: Lonelyspeck’s world of experimental, Pasifikafuturist pop - InReview | InDaily, Inside South Australia Feted by Troye Sivan, Charli xcx, and Bring Me The Horizon, Adelaide-based producer Sione Teumohenga has resurfaced with their long-awaited debut album – and the culmination of over a decade of pop ex...

Covered @lonelyspeck.bsky.social’s debut LP: www.indailysa.com.au/inreview/mus...

Adelaide duo turn James Joyce’s Ulysses into 18-hour jazz odyssey - InReview | InDaily, Inside South Australia It’s unusual for a debut release to consist of 18 discs of improvised sax-and-piano jazz inspired by a 105-year-old book. For Derek Pascoe and Chris Martin, Here Comes Everything is a fitting rebuke t...

I started out as a local music journalist and although the free market has thoroughly disabused me of that dream I’ve indulged in a little bit of music writing at supporter-driven InReview lately, and very much enjoyed it.

www.indailysa.com.au/inreview/mus...

Another book week passes and it seems not a single parent has dressed their child up as a young Rupert Murdoch. Disappointing!

A koala, sitting on the ground, looking off into the distance as if deep in thought.

Contemplating life.

At QLD senate estimates last week it was revealed Arts Queensland overturned a long-held plan to name QPAC’s new theatre after a prominent First Nations figure (Oodgeroo Noonuccal was frontrunner) in favour of a public vote. It’s now the ‘Glasshouse’ — the same name as a theatre in Port Macquarie 🤔

MEAA condemns targeted attacks on Gaza journalists as a war crime as toll nears 200 deaths

‘Alien is a warning, isn’t it?’: Essie Davis on Alien: Earth and Tasmania’s ecological crisis The Babadook and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries star plays a corporate scientist pushing the limits of human survival in the new series Alien: Earth Essie Davis didn’t watch much horror growing up in Tasmania; the 55-year-old actor can still bitterly recall the moment when, aged four, she was left at home while her older siblings went to see Jaws at the local cinema in Hobart. “I stood by the back door going, ‘I will remember this day for the rest of my life!’” Davis recalls, speaking from her current family home, also in Tasmania. Continue reading...

‘Alien is a warning, isn’t it?’: Essie Davis on Alien: Earth and Tasmania’s ecological crisis

Port Willunga beach / Tirranangku is one of the most beautiful places I know. Visited today for the first time in months and it hit me right in the guts:

The killing code: strange symbols in a WA settler’s diaries lay bare frontier atrocities Exclusive: Stories of murders passed down by Yamatji elders are confirmed by a cipher hidden in the 1850s journals of prominent pastoralist Major Logue. Now descendants on both sides want to break the...

Well worth a read — one story that captures the tensions of writing history in this country, from descendants defensively gatekeeping primary sources, to the cottage industry of small publishers, to the First Nations communities that always knew the truth:
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Big turnout this afternoon on Kaurna Yarta, marching across King William St bridge to Parliament House

The barriers keeping Adelaide musicians off the stage - InReview | InDaily, Inside South Australia A government-backed industry showcase’s failure to accommodate emerging artist Nat Luna has stoked a bigger conversation about accessibility.

“How many singers and songwriters do we have, that have all these beautiful stories to tell, but they can’t get on the stage to do that?"

A state government-backed industry showcase drew criticism after failing to accommodate an artist who uses a wheelchair:

www.indailysa.com.au/inreview/mus...

Thanks Jeannine 🙏

Pre-order links for UK and US editions of The Butterfly Thief — with alternative cover 🦋

🇬🇧 scribepublications.co.uk/books-author...

🇺🇸 scribepublications.com/books-author...